Baptisms and Transfers

A cool lizard we saw the other day. His head is blue, his body green and his tail orange.

Our first round of transfers are coming up this weekend and we are losing 4 of our 10 elders. We have been dreading this day even though we knew it had to be coming. It's amazing how much you come to love these wonderful young men. We will sure miss the ones that are leaving us. Elder Mpanza is finishing his mission and is headed home to South Africa. Elder Ariho is headed down to Blantyre, Elder Stinnett is going over to Lusaka and Elder Okumu is being banished to the Copper Belt region of northern Zambia. There used to be 4 elders in the city he is going to but now there will only be him and his companion.
 An incident that shows the blessings of the Spirit happened last Wednesday. Sister Prete was at the Kauma Branch chapel doing training with the Relief Society presidency when Elder Prete poked his nose in and said he was going to make a visit. The Branch President from the Lilongwe Branch had come and asked if Elder Prete would come with him to see a family that he really felt impressed that he needed to go visit. Of course he said sure. The training meeting finished and we went on to choir practice. We had a great practice and went on to keyboard class. Keyboard class ended, the elders came home for the night and still no Elder Prete........meanwhile.......The father of the family is a member but has not been coming to church. The mother is not a member yet, she is about 7 months pregnant. They also have an 18 month old and a 3 year old. Elder Prete and Pres Ntholoa had contacted the missionaries for that area and they and a member that was with the elders had all gone to the home to check on the family. The elders had come upon the father a couple of times over the last couple of weeks and he had been drinking. When they all went into the house the mother was lying on the floor with the two babies and was so weak she could hardly sit up. The 18 month old couldn't even cry, it only whimpered. They hadn't eaten in several days. What is so sad is that the father has a decent job. He is a teacher at a private school but he had fallen off the wagon and started drinking again and spent all his wages leaving nothing for his family. Between the five visitors, (Elder Prete, Pres. Ntholoa, Elder Gonza, Elder Tumbleson and Peter, the branch missionary) they scrounged up 4500 kwacha which is about 18-20 dollars. They sent Pres. Ntholoa and Peter into the market to get as much food as they could for what money they had. They knew that if Elder Prete or Elder Tumbleson, being azungu (whitemen) or even Elder Gonza with his white shirt, tie and name tag had gone along they would not get very good prices. They were able to get about 3/4 of a bushel bag of maize, several tomatoes, onions, some rice and ground nuts (peanuts) that they grind together to feed to babies, milk, oil sugar, salt. The mother cried when they brought the food. With effort, she sat up and, at the father's request, the Elders gave her and the babies a priesthood blessing.
The father got some chastising and encouragement to come for help and counseling. We sure hope he can kick the drink because he has been warned that he will also lose his job if he doesn't.
The next morning we went to visit the home and the mother was up and had tidied the house and cooked food for her family. The baby was sitting, leaning over the edge of a big plastic dishpan full of unground maize, just running his fingers through it. While we were visiting with the mother we heard a little coughing choking sound and she jumped up and picked him up. We realized that he was still too weak to hold his head up for long and was choking on the edge of the dishpan.
The elders have been checking on them regularly and they are improving day by day.
We just don't even like to think what might have happened if President Ntholoa had ignored the prompting to visit this family. It is so sweet to be here and see these leaders learning their duties, learning to act on the voice of the Spirit and working to bless the lives of the members of the branches. Both of the Branch Presidents are really taking their responsibilities seriously and truly love the people they serve. We feel so privileged to be here and to help in establishing the church here in Lilongwe, Malawi.

President Ngwelete (Branch President of the Kauma Branch) and his son Alec before the baptism.

Elder Mpanza's last baptism. He left for the first leg of his journey home on Friday. We lost 4 of our Elders in this transfer and it was a sad day. You get quite attached and you never know if you will ever see them again. But baptisms are awesome. We got 4 new adult members and one little one in this round.

Our "thundering herd". For our last District Meeting supper before transfer day we made spudnuts. They were definitely a hit!!! I thought a couple of the elders were going to collapse in a swoon. It's been a hundred years since I have made spudnuts but I don't think it will be that long before we make them again.

An approaching thunderstorm. This was a couple of weeks ago and then it turned quite hot. The crops were really starting to suffer and we were praying it would rain again soon. At home, if there isn't much rain it is a bad year for the farmers. Here, if there isn't enough rain, people starve.

A pretty good share of the Kauma Branch. Be sure to scroll in on this picture. Don't the 3 white faces just look totally fake, like they are pasted in or something? Three of these things just don't belong here!!! to quote the Sesame Street song. It's a great feeling, we can name almost everyone there, even the little kids. I have been going into Primary for a bit of singing time and it is so hard for them. It is like trying to teach me to sing in Chinese or something. Not only is the song unfamiliar but the words are in a foreign language. The Backmans are doing such a great job with the kids. They have one of the branch members in there to interpret and they just teach and sing and teach and sing. They are doing their best to make sure those little ones learn the gospel. In the Lilongwe Branch, Sis Collins is also in the Primary. They have a few kids that speak good English but in some ways that is challenging too. They are getting things going really well though. They just got a couple of teachers so that it is not just one or two people doing all the work. Hopefully before the Collins' leave in June things will be rolling along and we won't even miss them. NOT!!! They have really been the stability here since they arrived. They are really the only ones who have seen how the church works in the established areas and even though they are young, they have seen how things are supposed to run. We are so grateful for these two special families.